Why are bald heads so shiny, when the skin else­where on your body isn’t?

Most of the skin on your body is ac­tu­ally cov­ered with tiny hairs called vel­lus hairs that give your skin a slightly vel­vety, peach-fuzz look. With male pat­tern bald­ness, the hair fol­li­cles shrink and turn into skin cells, so there are no hairs at all – not even vel­lus hairs. But the scalp is par­tic­u­larly shiny be­cause of the se­ba­ceous glands. Th­ese se­crete oil and are found all over our skin, but the scalp has a lot more and this oil coats the skin and pro­vides a more uni­form re­flec­tive sur­face. What’s more, stud­ies sug­gest that more ac­tive se­ba­ceous glands could ac­tu­ally play a role in early hair loss.